As @philgeorgiadis.ft.com has written about Virgin's plans to finance Channel Tunnel trains for FT this morning www.ft.com/content/2240... then also have a read of my piece about how a rival to Eurostar could differentiate from the incumbent jonworth.eu/want-to-riva... #CrossChannelRail
Posts by Ben Jones
Ah. CSU in Bayern wants out of the Deutschlandticket from 2026
www.deutschlandfunk.de/bayern-will-...
Short sighted. Non collaborative. Smug. Superior. And wrong. Exactly what you'd expect from the CSU on transport policy.
Word of the Day is ‘bayard’ (16th century): one who has the supreme self-confidence of ignorance.
Things to do in Copenhagen when you’ve got to wait an hour and a half for someone else to arrive No.1:
Go to Sweden for a bit.
LNER 91111 For the Fallen. King’s Cross
LNER 91111 For the Fallen. King’s Cross
LNER 91111 For the Fallen. King’s Cross
Nice to get some thoroughbred traction on the front for tonight’s 2133 @lner.co.uk from King’s Cross.
Off to London to find out about First Group’s open access plans, on an open access train operated by First Group. @railmagazine.bsky.social #hulltrains
lol, a clip of a Tesla's vision system trying to understand a train
labyrinth.zone/notice/Aq5V7...
Well that didn’t last long. DB Fernverkehr has put its Stadler KISS/IC2 double deck EMUs (acquired from Westbahn a few years ago) up for sale.
Decent trains. They will do a good job for someone, but where?
www.db-gebrauchtzug.de/f?p=222:751:...:
It was.
It was great. Good to catch up with some familiar faces and to see the new livery up close. Looks very smart!
@lner.co.uk Azuma 801207 showing off its new ‘Darlington’ livery to kick off the Stockton & Darlington Railway 200 celebrations. @gawuffy.bsky.social
LNER Azuma arriving at Grantham
First northbound trip of 2025 with @lner.co.uk - off to Darlington for a Railway 200 themed ‘do’. Probably the first of many this year! @railmagazine.bsky.social
Not a big thing in itself, but yet another example of an organisation making its offer slightly worse, reducing convenience for passengers.
It was only ‘resting’ on their drive.
Can’t wait. One of my favourite working weekends of the year. Better start getting everything ready!
The Rail Sale is back! Over 14-20 January, selected Advance and Off-Peak fares for travel between 17 January and 31 March will go on sale at up to 50% off. All UK train operators, except Hull Trains, Lumo, Merseyrail and Translink Northern Ireland, are participating.
LNER Class 91 Kings Cross
LNER Class 91 Sir Bobby Robson
My @lner.co.uk taxi home from London tonight. Sir Bobby on the business end.
Hoping for a bit of this action later on the 2133 from Kings Cross!
First train trip of what promises to be a very exciting year of travelling. Off to that there London to talk to the world’s oldest model railway club.
That one.
It looks like the hotel we stayed in near Salou in the 1980s.
Good news. This should help freight and encourage more Eurostar and open access international services.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that job. So I have decided to leave the Washington Post”
— Ann Telnaes, after drawing this cartoon, which included the image of a supplicant Jeff Bezos
It’s the emergency backup moon, which NASA is manoeuvring into place while the regular moon is taken away for its annual servicing. This year they’re replacing the old-style light bulbs with LEDs, and GB News is furious that the moon is now woke.
Sadly not the Orient Express, which is much posher and runs from Calais to Venice. It looks like the engine they’ve been using for the London Polar Express trains over Christmas, heading home to Cumbria with its support coach. Good spot and great pic tho!
Searching for ideas for your next adventure by train? Here are a few to suit all kinds of budgets - new piece for @cnn.com has just gone live.
edition.cnn.com/travel/most-...
Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come.
‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.
Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.
Happy New Year everyone. Just booking the first of (hopefully) many trips for 2025 and discovered that Eurotunnel offers a ‘ferrets’ option for pets travelling on Le Shuttle.